this is based on my gut feeling, as someone who is hiring and has FOSS projects we use for work.<p>first of all, there are multiple factors at play:<p>does contributing to FOSS projects increase your chances at getting any job?<p>does it make a difference to which projects you contribute to?<p>both these can be answered with yes.<p>having a portfolio of public contributions is helpful. (personally i think it is unfair to those who can't afford the free time to spend coding, so i try to reduce the effect, but even then the ability to look at your code will give me insights that i'd otherwise not get)<p>if i am looking for a webdeveloper, i probably won't care so much about your kernel contributions, other than as a general indicator of your skills. at the worst i might fear that your career interests don't align with the job i can offer.<p>so working on a company's codebase is likely going to help make sure that your interests are aligned with the work i want you to do. but only if the job you apply for is actually in that very area.<p>most of googles jobs for example are not angular, flutter or tensorflow. contributing there will probably not make a difference because you likely won't be hired to work on those.<p>it is more likely to matter for smaller projects/companies.<p>however on your last point, as mentioned by others, unless your contribution is so significant that you already know the core developers on a first name basis (like you are in the top 10% of non-core contributors) they won't reach out to you. bigger companies won't because it's not enough to stand out, and smaller companies rarely have the funds to hire people on a whim.<p>what contributing may help you with is to be the first to hear when new positions open up.<p>if you are in the inner circle of angular developers, you may find out sooner if a new position in the angular team opens up. and you may have a chance, not because you contributed, but because they already know you and because you were able to submit an application earlier. (they know you because you contributed, but if you keep a stealth appearance while contributing, so that you never interact with other developers then that probably won't help)<p>i have been in that group in one project, and while i didn't get an offer from the company behind the project, job offers that targeted the experience were usually posted first on the core developer list, and so i knew about them early. my actual code contributions though weren't really that significant but being on the inner circle helped (i organized conferences for the community and helped edit a book for example).